This study is about language learning and language development. The purpose of the survey is to investigate how current learning theory and language research reflect on teaching instructions for the teaching material in spanish, with focus on the student´s awareness and reflection.

The survey is based on a comparative textanalysis of four teaching instructions for the seventh year in the nineyear compulsory school.

The result show great variations between the teaching instructions, regarding execercises as well as instructions. A theoretical approach and an explicit connection to research is something that is constantly missing in the instructions to the teachers.

The aim of this essay is to examine if children’s, in this case girls and boys between four and six year old, experiences and perceptions of various occupations follow a gender stereotypical pattern that is distinguishable in the society and that is evidenced by a gender distributed list presented by the Central Bureau of Statistics (SCB 2016).

These children’s experiences and perceptions are examined in relation to family and surroundings. The central question is how they describe occupations and occupational-related activities offered in a school and preschool environment from a gender perspective. These children’s experiences and perceptions are also examined in relation to how they describe their career-related aspirations.

Our study is theoretically based upon two different alignments of the gender theory that describe the social construction of gender.

The data collection is based on 7 group interviews with 31 children from one preschool class and two different preschools.

The results of our study indicate that the children have occupational experience that they relate to family members and/or to their immediate surroundings. The majority of the children’s experiences show that chores are distributed equally within the family and are therefore described as genus neutral. However, the majority of the children's occupational experience is gender-influenced, thus following the gender segregated labor market outlined by Central Bureau of Statistics (2016) list. Their own occupational aspirations also show that they follow this gender stereotypical pattern. The study emphasizes that the children are active agents in their development of gender identity and that their gender identity appears more clearly in specific contexts. On the other hand, we see that girls are more eager to extend the limits of the female arena. Another important aspect that the study shows is that the occupational activities offered in the school and preschool activities have a positive impact on how children distinguish their own ability. This can increase their ability to feel that they can do it if they really want to!

Taking its point of departure in the connotations to war and violence inherent in what is here called the ‘language of crisis’ (Jantzen), the purpose of this article is to explore what it might mean to reassess the language of educational change and policy reform in the imagery of natality and birth (Arendt). If the task in a ‘crisis’ is to fight against the crisis, effectively and forcefully, the argument of the paper is that the root metaphors of natality and birth puts into play an imagery that makes possible a relational language for educational change and reform. If the language we use has performative consequences, the question explored is what a ‘language of natality’ can make possible as a language of struggle for education.

Rooted in philosophy of education, the overall purpose of this dissertation is to renegotiate the relationship between education, religion, and democracy by placing the religious subject at the centre of this renegotiation. While education is the main focus, the study draws its energy from thefact that tensions around religious beliefs and practices seem to touch upon the very heart of liberal democracy. The study reads the tensions religious pluralism seems to be causing in contemporary education through a post-structural approach to difference and subjectivity.

The purpose is accomplished in three movements. The first aims to show why the renegotiation is needed by examining how the relationship between education, democracy, and religion is currently being addressed in cosmopolitan education and deliberative education. The second movement introduces a model of democracy, radical democracy, that sees the process of defining the subject as a political process. It is argued that this model offers possibilities for seeing religion and the religious subject as part of the struggle for democracy. The third movement aims to develop how the relationship between education, democracy, and religion might change if we bring them together in a conversation whose conditions are not ‘owned’ by any one of them.

To create this conversation, Hannah Arendt, Jacques Derrida, Søren Kierkegaard, and Emmanuel Levinas are brought together around three themes – love, freedom, and dialogue – referred to as ‘windows.’ The windows offer three examples in which religious subjectivity is made manifest but they also create a shift in perspective that invites other ways of seeing the tensions between religion and democracy. The aim of the study is to discuss how education might change when religion and democracy become questions for it through the perspectives offered in the windows and what this implies for the particular religious subject.

Inspired by Adriana Cavarero’s recent work on maternal inclinations as a postural term, the overall purpose of this article is to seek out a geometry of the educational relation that is alien to the masculine myth of the ‘economic man’. Drawing on Jan Masschelein and Maarten Simons’s critique of the marketization of education, reading their giving ‘shape and form’ to the scholastic school through the geometry of Cavarero’s ‘maternal inclinations’, the article shows how images and metaphors associated with the posture of rectitude infuse the scholastic model of the school. At the same time, we argue, it testifies to a geometry of an inclined subject and, in doing so, it offers an opening for recovering the significance of the feminine and maternal to educational theory. Affirming this opening, the paper makes a shift of emphasis from scholastic techniques to educational postures.

This paper rethinks the fostering task of the teacher in a time when it, paradoxically, has tended to become marginalized and privatized despite its public urgency. Following post-holocaust thinkers such as Hannah Arendt and Zygmunt Bauman, the position explored here is radical in the sense that it takes ‘the crisis of traditions’ and the erosion of a common moral ground or value basis seriously, and it is conservative in the sense that it insists on responding educationally to the call from the past by returning to (a) the moral character of our existence and (b) our own embeddedness in the incompleteness of living traditions. The argument is that there is a difference between educating for common values—which entails a belief in pre-existing commonalities—and making values common in and through education. The latter, we argue, entails an aspiration for continuously creating new commonalities and for cultivating the ability to act and judge as a thinking moral agent in specific, lived and worldly cases. In this sense, the fostering task of the teacher is to create commonality of what is not (yet) common, turning the liberal democratic values of the past into contested objects of study.

In a time of cultural pluralism and legitimation crisis (Habermas), there is an increasing uncertainty among teachers in Sweden about with what right they are fostering other people's children. What does it mean to teach 'common values' to the coming generation? How do teachers find legitimacy and authority for this endeavour, not as family members or as politicians, but as teachers? To respond to this uncertainty, the paper takes the public/private distinction as a starting-point for rethinking the place of the school. Drawing on the work of Hannah Arendt and of Jan Masschelein and Maarten Simons, it argues that the school is an in-between place-a place that transforms values into 'common goods' and turns fostering into a teaching matter. The overall purpose of the paper is to sketch out the consequences of this 'in-betweenness' for what it means to find one's voice as a teacher in fostering the coming generation.

Many reports infer that questions of HBT and homophobia are either poorly addressed or not addressed at all in schools today. This study is based on interviews with teachers of students aged 13 to 15. It is an inquiry to the teacher's thoughts about, knowledge of, and sense of responsibility to inform students of the subjects 'Queer', 'HBT', and 'Homophobia'. Who is responsible for educating the students regarding these subjects and what do teachers think about including these subjects in their curriculum? How do the teachers describe their knowledge of the subjects? Do they require further knowledge themselves in order to educate others in a proper way? The study is grounded in queer theories. This study shows that teachers do have some knowledge and are interested in teaching the subjects. Unfortunately the subject matter presently lacks support and status in schools and as a result is left behind.

This article focuses on the formulation of Islamic Religious Education (IRE) at two Swedish Muslim schools where fieldwork was conducted in 2005-2008. Its aim is to contribute knowledge to ways in which IRE is formed as a confessional school subject within the framework and under the jurisdiction of the Swedish school system. Even though the general content of the classrooms was fundamentally the same, specific variations were clearly evident. The paper shows that global discussions on matters such as ‘authentic Islam’, gender inequality, and Muslim minority life have influenced the teaching that has been offered in these classrooms. These discussions have developed out of the many ways in which contemporary Muslims can choose to express their faith. And although each teacher deals with these issues in her own unique way, they all attempt to connect them to the pupils’ situation as Muslims in Swedish society as well as to the national curriculum and local school syllabi. This leads to the concept of glocalisation, meaning that just as local conditions adapt to the influences of the global, so do global influences adapt to the conditions of the local. The paper demonstrates how the influences of interpretative tradition, local school context, situational perceptions and globally discussed issues work together to affect the content of IRE, meaning the type of interpretation of Islam that is provided in these schools.

This study investigates how social interaction affects newly arrived pupils’ views on their study situation in the Swedish educational system. The aim is to give a contribution to the discussion on the notion of including “the Other” in educational practice in multicultural schools. Semi-structured group interviews were conducted to explore how the intercultural perspective and the theory of inclusion can be used to explain the dynamics of social interaction. The main research questions were: how did social interaction take place in preparatory class and in regular class? In what way did social interaction affect the transitional period from preparatory class to regular class? Did social interaction have consequences for the informants as learners? The results show that newly arrived pupils had the opportunity to develop intercultural interaction skills in the preparatory class. Meanwhile, this organization meant educational exclusion, which might have contributed to the stress and anxiety they experienced later in regular class. The transitional period was problematic, since students had to struggle in two aspects. First, they had to catch up in many subjects though no significant measures were taken to their linguistic ability and former school experiences. Secondly, they had to assert their place in an environment with dysfunctional social interaction between some teachers and pupils in regular class. The conclusion is that schools have a dilemma in catering for both social and educational inclusion simultaneously. Despite this, many pupils expressed satisfaction with their school performance. This suggests that intercultural interaction skills, crucial for the pupils’ development, can be developed in the preparatory class. Schools need to implement an intercultural perspective in the educational organization and planning to include every newly arrived pupil. This calls for a holistic approach in pedagogic and social interaction between everyone involved.

The purpose of this essay is to find out how pre-schools teachers use mathematics in the outdoors to promote and develop children's learning. The essay also focus on similarities and differences between pre-school teachers and their ways of integrating mathematics in the outdoor environment. A comparison is later made to the answers from pre-school teachers in two ''I Ur och Skur" pre-schools about what outdoor education is , how they use the outdoors for mathematics and what kind of mathematics activates they use practical.

The survey is based on a comparative method of qualitative interviews and observations. The study builds on Lev Vygotsky's socio-cultural theory in which we have chosen to focus on the concept of '' the proximal development''. It can be summarized as learning occurs in interaction with each other and that children learn better through social relationships. Another concept that we have chosen to use in our study is ''learning by doing’’ by John Dewey's. The concept means that learning takes place through the practice.The essay then tries to analyse how '' I Ur och Skur'' pre-school teachers use mathematics in the outdoor environment. We analyze by see similarities and differences with both pre-school teachers education, outdoor as a learning room and mathematics activates.

The conclusion of the study is that mathematics is infinite and therefore they are many different ways of working. We did not find such large differences in pre-schools teachers’ way of working with mathematics outdoor. We also came to the conclusion that nature is as a support tool to develop the interest in mathematics with more space for learning. At the end of our essay we want to point out that the theories helped us to highlight preschool teachers interview answers to more clearly linked to previous research and our observations

Scheduled time for reflective work is common at many Swedish preschools. Reflection is a complex concept that is being used with many different purposes in preschools. The reflective work in Swedish preschools today has its roots in the theories from Vygotskij about how children learn by watching and cooperating with others. Also, many Swedish preschools have taken inspiration from the preschools in Reggio Emilia in Italy, who see the reflective work as something necessary in their work around children’s learning processes. “The learning group” is a way of seeing children and adults as members of groups who capture knowledge by social interaction, taken from the preschools in Reggio Emilia. In 1998, Swedish preschools got their first curriculum, which also took inspiration from Vygotskij and his visions of children’s learning.

The aim of this study is to find out how reflective work can be done at some Swedish preschools, and also to investigate a group of teacher’s thoughts on reflective work. The issues in my study are:

What meaning can lie in the concept of reflection in preschools?

In what situations can teachers and children in preschools use reflection?

What can be the purpose of this reflection?

To answer these questions, I did interviews with teachers and observations of meetings and of the work that was being done with the children. The result shows that the term of reflection is ambiguous and is being used with different interpretations in the preschools I have studied. Reflection is for instance retelling events, solving problems, cooperating and curiosity. Teachers and children use reflection in various situations everyday, both at planned and spontaneous activities. The purpose of the reflection at the preschools I have visited was for instance to find a focus in working with the children, to know how to move on and to get deeper into what you do.

The background of the essay as well as the previous research on our subject revealed leisure time teachers collaboration assignment as unclear. This is in agreement with our previous experiences from our operational training (VFU) and workplaces. The purpose of the study was therefore to investigate which assignment in the form of a leadership role, tasks and use of skills that leisure teachers describe to have during the school day.

We also examined which factors influenced their work during the school day. We chose to conduct qualitative interviews with six informants. All informants had a basic teacher education for the leisure center. In order to highlight the characteristics of the leisure teacher’s professional identity, the theoretical starting point was social identity theory - which highlights identity creation based on group membership.

The result showed that leisure time teachers described their work during the school day in relation to the class teacher’s assignment description. Contributing factors were, for example, valuation of skills, unclear job descriptions and resource shortages, all of which affected their work during the school day. Based on this, we saw in the discussion a connection between our results and the previous research.

Offering basic education is the greatest investment the world can make in its future. Basic education improves live opportunity for people and also give them a chance to form a better life for them selves. Too many of Peru’s inhabitants live in extreme poverty and education could help the country improve this situation. In addition, in the rural areas of Peru a lot of people speak another language than Spanish as their mother tongue. The purpose of this thesis is to get a more profound knowledge about matters concerning Bilingual Intercultural Education in Peru.

The research question has been what issues can be found, involving EBI education in Peru; opportunities and challenges? I have researched this through interviews with people working in the rural areas combined with a literature study. I visited schools in the area of Cusco and Anchonga. In Cusco the school did not have EBI education and in Anchonga the visited school did have. Some of the findings made are that it is important for the people involved such as parents, principals and teachers to be supportive of EBI education to make it work. It is also a challenge to find teachers who know the method and are bilingual. Many schools are in addition dependent of support from non-governmental organizations, which are an opportunity and a challenge. Important is also to make some teachers and parents believe that EBI education is not against the social development of the country.

The purpose of this study is to discuss various approaches to group work and the importance of different approaches in relation to group work in schools. The study also looks at the results of the children working in different groups and constellations.

This study is based on what previous research, literature and the tree teachers say about the subject group work and group divisions. Issues: Is there any kind of group work that always works? Does the structure of the tasks have any effect on the outcome? Is there any good reason to choose the teamwork approach that? The method I chose is a qualitative study with a phenomenological approach to the analysis. Three teachers were interviewed; result is presented in themes and concludes with a brief summary. In the theory part is the writer and researcher Kjell Granström frequently referenced when he is an actual person in Sweden in the subject. Furthermore, educators Vygotsky and Gardner’s theories of how children learn and how teachers at school can work with these theories are also important for the study. The study findings demonstrate the importance of teacher's choice of work and an awareness of how different group classifications can affect students' work. This is consistent with previous research Granström and also Forslund Frykedal reached.

This survey is a text analysis of 4 teaching books during a ten years period in Social studies from a multicultural and intercultural perspective. Taking as a starting point that society and the school in today’s Sweden are multicultural and in need of more intercultural teaching I explore teaching books in social science to se how they relate to Sweden as a multicultural society and their way of relating to intercultural teachings and compare them. The questions asked are: How do the different books describe the multicultural society in Sweden? What kind of intercultural tools are found in the books? And are there any similarities or differences among these books? The theories used as a starting point are reformulated by the author after theories of Von Wright and Lahdenperä to fit in to the context of a text analysis of teaching books and the method used is a content analysis with its purpose of describing how the books are constructed. I have found that two older books from ten years ago are not describing Sweden as a multicultural society and are not including people with different origin as a natural part of the society. I have also found that there are not much intercultural tools used for increasing the reader’s intercultural understanding. In two older books from 1994 there is a tendency to stereotype people with different origins in and to not describe them as participant members of society. The newer books from 2004 and 2005 are more describing Sweden as a multicultural society both directly and indirectly and they are including people with different origins to be a participant part of the society. It is also reflected that there is always a risk for stereotyping different groups in society by discussing problems but that there are different ways considered to avoid that. The books from today are both using more intercultural tools to increase the reader’s intercultural understanding in different ways.

The purpose with this study is to investigate the experiences some adult Romans have of co-operation between Romani parents and school. The study is based on interviews and has been inspired of critical ethnography and hermeneutic theories. What views have the Romani adults and parents on parental co-operation with school? Which strategy do they see as a practical way for improved parental co-operating with school? The study show that the Romani parents who participated in this study do want a very close co-operation and have used strategies of open communication and giving suggestion on how to co-operate with the schools. One of the informants has had the opportunity to give an in-dept interview and this gives an example of a more diversified picture of the Romani parental patterns in relation to school. The adult Ro-mani group that has been interviewed thinks that a close co-operation with school is very im-portant. One suggestion of improvement from the interviewers is teacher-assistans to improve the schools parental co-operation. There where also suggestions that educational efforts of the school is needed for all students and to include knowledge about who the Romani people are and about their history, culture and language. Some of the parents even showed examples of giving suggestions to teachers to increase the contact by writing in a dairy for each student. The parents in this study also reports of institutionalized antigypsyism and discrimination. In that view the in-dept interview gives an explanation to why the co-operation is believed to be so crucial. There is a fear that the public authorities in somewhat way would hurt the Romani children.

This study aims to examine what students in two schools think of the physical environment in their school, and how this affect their studies. My main question I wanted to answer was:

How does the students think that the physical environment affect their day in school?

I also wanted to find out what the students think is important in the physical environment in their school.

The study is based on interviews with students i two different schools. One secondary school, in which three eight-grade students were interviewed, and one high school in which two students were interviewed.

The result of the interviews is that the students think that their work in school is affected by the physical environment. The most important things is to feel safe in school and to have the possibilities to do studies without limitations in the environment, for example room to do their own studies, and a flexibility and variation in the environment. The interviews also tell that the students think that their possibility to have influence on the environment is important, and that the school listens to their suggestions. The difference between the two schools is significant, and this also shows in how the students describe the environment in their schools.

The study also discuss what learning is, and how the environment can be adapted to encourage students to learn, both in class and outside between classes. The environment is also important when it comes to the ability to adapt the pedagogy to the current curriculum, because of the changes in pedagogy that has occured in the decades that has passed since many schools, like the high school in this study, were built.

The purpose of this research has been to find out whether and how teachers stimulate and motivate well achievers in the elementary school to reach a higher level. To gather information I visited two different schools within the same county in Stockholm and on each school I met and interviewed with two teachers. The answers received from these interviews are presented in this study as my results. I found that the teachers feel that students that do well in the classroom many times work as role models for the other students. Often these students require extra material as they usually finish their workload ahead of others. The extra material has two purposes. On one hand the purpose is to help the children reach a higher academic level while on the hand the extra material is used as a distraction to keep the children busy. The seating arrangement in the classroom and ways of grouping the students is also tools to use for teachers to face all kind of children in school. The teachers often feel that the lack of time often forbid them to spend more time with each student. They also feel that the students that do well in school are the ones who suffer when they are the ones to receive the least amount of time as well as attention. To make all students develop equally on their individual levels it is necessary, according to the teachers interviewed, that the teachers find time for all students in the classroom. A lack of recourses always seem to be a problem in the school system but if the organization is well planed and the classrooms and the material is up to date this could help teachers spending their time on their students rather than the organization. In my opinion the teachers are ability to help all their students as well as the group constellation are crucial factors on how well students perform in school. Which seem to be a fact for all students, not only for the well achieving students.

Background: In the schools today it is common that teachers talk about children with special needs and children with “Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder” – ADHD. You can often hear people discuss about children with ADHD from the teachers point of view, that pupils are hard to handle and that they do not know how to create a good relationship with them. But you seldom hear anyone talk about school from the children’s perspective, how they feel, think and experience their school attendance.

Purpose: The purpose of this qualitative study was to examine how a functional disability like ADHD can effect a childs schooling and also to show how pupils with ADHD themselves experience their school attendance and how they are being treated by teachers and other pupils.

Method: In order to investigate this, five interviews was carried out with students in the the ages of 16-25. I was interested in their experiences from their years in compulsory school, first to ninth grade. The theoretical basis in this study has been Vygotskijs socio-cultural perspective and concepts such as self-esteem and individualization.

Result: The result of the interviews shows that large classes and disturbing noises in the classroom affected the pupil’s concentration in a bad way. They felt that their teachers did not listen or understood their complex of problems, which resulted in frustration, disappointment and anger, which often led to conflicts. They also felt that the teachers very often criticized and punished them, which resulted in more frustration and decreased self-esteem. All respondents felt a kind of alienation because of the treatment from teachers and other children.

Conclusions: One of the conclusions in this study is that the teachers did not have enough knowledge, understanding or competence to give the pupils the support they required, and therefore, this study emphasizes the importance of further education for teachers.

Background: There have been several reforms within the Swedish educational system since the 1960´s, not only within the elementary school but also within the teachers’ education and the school leaders´ educational program.

Aim: My aim with this study is to explore if teachers´ expectations and experiences of school leadership have changed since the many educational reforms began in the 1960´s.

Method: For this study I have a used a comparative design. By making qualitative interviews with five teachers born in the 1940´s and five teachers born in the 1980´s I have then analyzed the result.

Result: Regardless of the 40 years of age difference and the multiple reforms within the educational system in Sweden the result shows that the teachers in this study did not have any clear expectations on their school leaders as they started their careers.

The aim of this study was to analyze the assessment of the national tests seen from the teacher’s perspective. The national tests are performed in the Swedish school, classes 3, 5, 9, and the upper secondary school (gymnasiet). There has been an ongoing discussion regarding assessment and grading for a long time and it is of high interest now more than ever. The last control assessment done in 2009 by the department of school inspections on the order of the Swedish government, showed big differences between the assessments done by the teachers, and the assessments completed by the department of school inspections. In order to get a good picture of how the teachers are experiencing the execution and assessment of the national tests we interviewed six teachers from the classes that are performing the test. The questions that this study is based on are:

Do the interviewed teachers experience that the basis for assessing the national test is at risk for arbitrary interpretation and hence become unjust and misjudged?

Is the professional role of the teacher influenced by the results the students are getting on the national tests?

Do the interviewed teachers experience pressure from the head of the school that the students are expected to grade high at the national tests?

Lev S Vygotskij, John Dewey, and Howard Gardner have in their research influenced large parts of the daily activity in the Swedish schools. By studying children’s development they suggest several approaches for the students to develop their skills. Korp discuss in hers thesis the inequity that many times occurs in the assessment of the national test in Swedish schools.

The results of this study showed that the interviewed teachers were comfortable with the instructions for execution and assessment of the national test. In addition, they also were of the opinion that independent assessment could be more just. However, one issue raised against the independent assessment is that the student the does not have the option of explaining an unclear answer to a question to the assessing teacher. This would not be of benefit for the student which has also been shown in literature and research.

This essay will treat a common subject within the preschool environment, the introductions of new children and parents. Throughout the introduction, teachers must relate to the new family to try and achieve a connection/attachment and provide security. The starting point is two self-perceived dilemmas where the teachers describe two different introductions. One introduction goes on for a longer period. The child does not want to let go of its parent and is sad as soon as the parent tries to leave it. The second introduction goes fast, children and parents are expressing happiness. The teachers at the preschool nevertheless are concernedwhen the child is perceived boundless as it runs between activities, other children and their parents. The purpose of this essay is to investigate how different connection patterns and prerequisites can affect the introduction of new families to the preschool environment. It will also examine the experience of the teacher or teachers, and the importance of good cooperation between the teachers. The preschool's environment and organisation will also be investigated and the role it plays in the introduction of the child and also for allowing the teachers to carry out a good introduction. This will be done through three questions, which are: How can we, as teachers, meet Pelle and Alma's different needs? What are the prerequisites and conditions needed for a good introduction? What psychological phenomena are relevant to the introduction? By using different concepts such as affect theory, mirroring, safe base, safe heaven and connection/attachment, this essay can approach these issues. Essen's main task is to provide teachers, regardless of experience, with different perspectives on the introduction and how these can be applied to new families. The essay describes the progression of the connection/attachment theory with different levels of connection. Safe base and safe heaven are different ways to see how a connection/attachment works between the child and the parent, as that is where the first connection/attachment is established. During the work, the focus on the children and parents has become more nuanced and the role of teachers is increasingly critical. Through literature studies and discussions in the tutoring group at school and with colleagues, we have gained a greater understanding of all parties involved in the introduction to preschool. An important conclusion we found is that connection/attachment, regardless of who cannot be accelerated. It must grow through trust and confidence.